Charles Kazlauskas played on the right side of a three-man front line for Helmond on Monday evening, as a 2-0 home win over Almere City strengthened their place in the Eerste Divisie standings.

Helmond were firmly in control from start to finish, and took the lead in the 25th minute on the strength of red-hot Erik Quekel's 13th league goal after fine set-up work by Daniel Guijo-Velasco and Kazlauskas.

The hosts were close to doubling the lead on multiple occasions throughout the remainder of the first half and much of the second, but were forced to endure a tight scoreline until the final minutes.

Even with their attacking dominance, they finally netted the insurance goal with 11 minutes left on the clock in a dead-ball situation, with Philipp Haastrup nodding home a corner from Jop van der Linden to bring the final score to 2-0.

The victory pushes Helmond up to fifth place in the division standings, in prime position for qualification to the playoffs with nine games left in the regular season.

They will be hopeful of running their unbeaten streak to ten games on Friday when they host 14th-place FC Oss, losers in their last four games.